THE United States was once the world’s largest provider of foreign aid. But the administration of President Donald Trump effectively dismantled the US Agency for International Development (USAID), claiming that foreign aid did not benefit the American people. This has triggered a severe humanitarian crisis in refugee camps around the world. Some estimates suggest that approximately 14 million additional deaths will occur worldwide by 2030.

In April 2025, the month after Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced an 83pc cut to all USAID programmes, I visited a refugee shelter in the southern Mexican state of Tabasco. At the time, 40 people from Central and South America and Africa were being housed and fed there. The shelter was operated through official development assistance from Western countries and Japan via the UN refugee agency UNHCR, and a plaque depicting the flags of those nations was displayed on a wall.

The Trump administration’s policies were already casting a shadow over the situation on the ground. The shelter’s coordinator, Josue Leal, said, “Many local organisations are being forced to close.” Pointing to a dilapidated water tower donated by Japan, he lamented, “It’s broken and unusable, but we don’t have the money to repair it.” This means that refugees who had fled violence and poverty in their home countries lacked access to safe water.

A wave of nationalism is spreading in Japan as well. When the Foreign Ministry announced in August that it would send tents and blankets to Colombia, which had been struck by a magnitude 7.4 earthquake, voices spread online arguing that aid should be prioritised for Kumamoto, in western Japan, which had been hit by a magnitude 7.1 earthquake in July. In September, another press release announcing a second round of $2 million in aid included a footnote stating, “Following the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, Japan received relief supplies such as water, food and toilet paper from Colombia.”

Tokyo aims to cultivate deep international partnerships required to secure its long-standing bid for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council

However, the phrase “When in trouble, we help each other out” — which embodies Japan’s traditional spirit of mutual aid — does not seem to resonate with modern Japanese people. Real wages for Japanese workers have barely risen over the past 30 years. Rising prices and the burden of taxes and social insurance premiums weigh heavily on their shoulders, and public opposition to foreign aid — which is funded by taxes — is growing.

Japan was the top Official Development Assistance (ODA) donor among developed nations until 2000, but five years later, it had fallen to fourth place behind Germany, the United States, and the United Kingdom. The Japanese government’s ODA budget for fiscal 2026 stands at $37 billion, half of what it was at its peak in fiscal year 1997. The Foreign Ministry recently established a new category called “Growth Strategy ODA” to explain to the public how ODA to developing countries contributes to Japan’s economic growth.

But ODA holds even greater significance. For Japan — a defeated nation in World War II that renounced war — it is also a crucial tool for asserting its presence in the international community without using military force. Japan’s ODA is characterised not merely by the provision of money or goods, but by its focus on promoting self-reliance while respecting the will of recipient countries. It has earned the trust of various nations through a track record of more than 70 years.

Cooperation with the United Nations is indispensable to this effort. It will soon be 70 years since Japan joined the United Nations in December 1956, marking its full-fledged postwar return to the international community. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, who visited Japan this past May, stated at a press conference: “Across the decades, the UN has benefitted enormously from Japan’s generosity and commitment to the multilateral system. And Japan has successfully leveraged its role at the United Nations to grow its diplomatic influence and build economic prosperity and peace through a stable and cooperative global system.”

Among the 193 member states, Japan is the third-largest contributor of UN assessed contributions, following the United States and China. Since the 1990s, Japan has strongly promoted the concept of “human security” within the United Nations — a concept aimed at protecting individuals from poverty, environmental destruction and infectious diseases.

Published in Dawn, November 2nd, 2026